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Poetry Reading: E. Hughes’s “Ankle-Deep in Pacific Water”

February 21 @ 7:00 pm - 8:00 pm

We are excited to welcome E. Hughes to Pittsburgh to celebrate their debut Ankle-Deep in Pacific Water, a collection of lyric poems interrogating the generational implications of the Great Migration to Northern California. Hughes will be in conversation with local writer and professor, Steffan Triplett.

Ankle-Deep in Pacific Water, a debut collection by E. Hughes, marries personal narrative with historical excavation to articulate the intricacies of Black familial love, life, and pain. Tracing the experiences of a southern Black family, their migration to the San Francisco Bay area, and the persistent anti-Blackness there (despite the state’s insistence that it is/was not involved in the US’ projects of imperialism or chattel slavery), Hughes illuminates the intersections of history, grief, and violence.

At the book’s heart is “The Accounts of Mammy Pleasant,” a persona poem written from the perspective of the formerly enslaved abolitionist and financier Mary Ellen Pleasant who is thought to have helped fund John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry. Alongside this historical account, Hughes deftly weaves in the story of a contemporary Black family navigating the generational trauma resulting from the Great Migration: domestic violence and racialized violence, familial love and loyalty, the work of parenting, and the work of being a child. Ankle-Deep in Pacific Water reveals in its pages that, while many things have changed over time, ultimately the question of what “freedom” meant and looked like for Black people in the early 20th century retains the same murkiness and contradictions for Black people today.

E. HUGHES is the author of Ankle-Deep in Pacific Water (Haymarket Books 2024). They received their MFA in poetry and MA in English Literature from the Litowitz Creative Writing Program at Northwestern University. Their poems have been published or are forthcoming in Guernica MagazineIndiana ReviewGulf Coast Magazine, Colorado Review, and The Rumpus—among others. They are a Cave Canem fellow and have been a finalist for the 2021 Elinor Benedict Poetry Prize, longlisted for the 2021 Granum Fellowship Prize, and a semifinalist of the 2022 and 2023 92Y Discovery Contest. Currently, Hughes is a PhD student in Philosophy at Emory University studying black aesthetics, psychoanalysis, and poststructuralism.

STEFFAN TRIPLETT is a Black, queer writer raised in Joplin, Missouri, and the author of the nonfiction chapbook Constraints (New Michigan Press, 2024). His essays and nonfiction appear in The Iowa ReviewFence, Lit HubVulture, and Electric Literature, and have most recently been anthologized in It Came From the Closet: Queer Reflections on Horror (Feminist Press, 2022). He is the Managing Director of the Center for African American Poetry and Poetics (CAAPP) and a Teaching Assistant Professor at the University of Pittsburgh. Triplett has received fellowships from Cave Canem, Callaloo, Outpost, Lambda Literary, and the National Book Critics Circle.

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This event will be in-person at White Whale Bookstore. Masks are required. If you are not able to make it to the store, we will also be livestreaming the event via Zoom: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/94N4ZVfVQpajqoVdbby5Iw

Head to our website to browse our entire stock, including all our books for upcoming events:
whitewhalebookstore.com/lists/LV5JV1l3fXRQ.

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Details

Date:
February 21
Time:
7:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Website:
https://www.facebook.com/events/524774473215771

Venue

White Whale Books & Coffee
4754 Liberty Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15224 United States
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Phone
(412) 224-2847
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Organizer

White Whale Books & Coffee
Phone
(412) 224-2847
Email
info@whitewhalebookstore.com
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